scientific progress quotes

The number of known human fossils only increases slowly. But the manner of regarding and assessing them is capable of progressing rapidly, as indeed it does. In the absence of any absolutely sensational discovery in prehistory, there is an up-to-date and scientific manner of understanding man, which is solidly based on palaeontology.

Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‚Eureka!‘ but ‚That’s funny…‘

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.